Lanka rejects day-night Test match

Aug 17, 2013 |

Sri Lanka on Friday turned down a request from Pakistan to play day-night Tests in the upcoming series in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) where both countries have loyal fans.

Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) said it decided against playing day-night Tests “since the national team players have not practised under lights and with the new pink ball”.
The challenge facing such Tests has been to find a ball that is clearly visible in both sunshine and floodlights, and the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) said it had sent the Sri Lankan board a dozen balls of pink and orange colour for them to examine.
The International Cricket Council (ICC) had approved the day-night matches under floodlights as a way to stem dwindling interest in Tests in many countries. The UAE has a large expatriate Pakistani community but few show up to watch Test matches, in part because they are played during the day when most are at work.
No country has yet tried the new format and the ICC has left it to individual boards to decide when and how to experiment.
Pakistan has been forced to play its “home” internationals at neutral venues, mainly in the UAE, since militants attacked the Sri Lankan team during a Test in Lahore in 2009.
Pakistan host Sri Lanka for three Tests, five one-day internationals and two Twenty20s in December and January in the UAE and Sarwar had thought that the conditions were right to experiment. The first Test starts in Dubai on December 31. The other two Tests are in Abu Dhabi (January 8-12) and Sharjah (January 16-20).

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/250867" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-d41d010d91c174c143be71cc207fe696" value="form-d41d010d91c174c143be71cc207fe696" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="90269664" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>